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July 31, 2013: Guns and Rebar

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca tosses a pistol onto a pile of guns to be melted at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s 20th annual Gun Melt at the Gerdau Steel Mill in Rancho Cucamonga, California. According to press releases from the sheriff’s office, 5,495 weapons confiscated from criminals in Los Angeles County and collected through a gun buyback program are being melted and reformed as steel rebar at the mill. The efficacy of gun buyback programs in reducing gun crime is as debatable as every other aspect of weapons ownership in the United States, but surely there can be no argument against taking a stand against gun violence!

Photo: David McNew/Reuters

July 30, 2013: Picture Something Better

Mustafizur (L) tries to comfort his wife Rebecca, 20, a garment worker rescued from the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, at the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza complex, built on swampy ground outside Dhaka with several illegal floors, killed 1,132 workers and focused international attention on safety standards in Bangladesh’s booming garment industry. More than four million people, mostly women, work in Bangladesh’s clothing sector, and we owe it to them to tell U.S. retailers to ensure that their Bangladesh supply factories are safe.

Photo: Andrew Biraj/Reuters

July 29, 2013: Democracy’s Ousted Poster Boy

Blood from supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi stains the floor beneath a poster of Morsi at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, near a Muslim Brotherhood campsite at Rabaa Adawiya Square, east of Cairo. The poster reads “Yes to legitimacy, No to the coup.” Thousands of Brotherhood activists hunkered down in a vigil at a Cairo mosque on Sunday, promising to stand their ground a day after security forces opened a dangerous new phase in the army’s confrontation with Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood by shooting dead at least 80 pro-Morsi supporters. Don’t these numbers make you want to stand up and say No Más?

Photo: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

July 26, 2013: Closing Arguments

Private First Class Bradley Manning (C), 25, is escorted out of court after closing arguments in his military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning is charged with providing the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website more than 700,000 classified files, combat videos and diplomatic cables while serving as a junior intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010. Boing Boing reports that armed military police stood over the laptops of journalists covering the trial’s last days, and that representatives of the press were denied Internet access and key documents the military used to build its closing argument. Luckily, America enjoys the liberty to stand up and say No Más to government interference with the free speech of an unshackled press!

Photo: James Lawler Duggan/Reuters

July 25, 2013: Dead Tired

Laborers who work nearby nap on a road as cars drive past in Chongqing Municipality, in southwest China. Chinese factory workers recently took an American CEO hostage at a plant outside of Beijing over a pay dispute. For decades, western manufacturers have exploited China as an inexhaustible pool of cheap labor, but workers have tired of the degraded standard of living supportable on what has at times amounted to slave wages. Nimble capitalists have countered by taking their business to more compliant countries, such as Bangladesh, places that may soon learn to demand protection against factory disasters and workforce abuse.

Photo: Stringer/Reuters

July 24, 2013: Tired, Poor, Huddled, Arrested

Trafficked human beings from Central America, Nepal and Bangladesh are seen in a trailer truck after being detected by police X-ray equipment at a checkpoint outside Tuxtla Gutierrez, capital of Mexico’s Chiapas State. Authorities said that Mexico detained 94 would-be immigrants, including 10 Nepalese and nine Bangladeshis, packed into the truck trying to reach the U.S. The driver of the vehicle, who was from central Mexico, was arrested on human trafficking charges. The truck had set out from Huehuetenango, Guatemala. The localized misery fueling the human trafficking industry has expanded the global network of exploitation and endangerment so that it touches every country in the world, and gives everyone a reason to stand up and say No Más.

Photo: Reuters

July 23, 2013: Teacher’s Pets

A teacher stands in front of riot police during a protest against public sector layoffs outside the Finance Ministry in Athens. Greece’s National Union of High School Teachers marched 500 strong on the government edifice to protest a proposal to shift 2,000 schoolteachers onto a fast track for layoffs. Government officials claim to be only following the orders of international lenders to cut the public workforce. As of 2012, Greece had one of the world’s highest rates of participation in higher education. Here in America, we don’t confront riot policemen in the struggle to keep college dreams alive, but we can sign a petition to urge long-term student-loan reform.

Photo: John Kolesidis/Reuters

July 22, 2013: Blamed Victim

Norwegian interior designer Marte Deborah Dalelv, 24, who was jailed after she went to police in the United Arab Emirates and reported being raped by a coworker, pauses during a Skype interview at the Norwegian Seamen’s Center in Dubai. UAE authorities apprehended Dalelv’s assailant, but they also sentenced the 24-year-old victim to 16 months in prison on charges of illicit sex. Dalelv was released to the protection of the Norwegian embassy while appealing her sentence, and the charges were dropped today. Dalelv says she has no regrets about coming forward if her warning will protect others from a similar fate. Join Marte Deborah Dalelv and stand with women around the world against rape, violence and fear.

Photo: Jumana El Heloueh/Reuters

July 19, 2013: Asylum-Free Zone

Interior Ministry officers handcuff Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny (L) inside a courtroom in Kirov. A Russian judge sentenced the popular blogger to five years in prison on Thursday after convicting him of large-scale theft in a trial Navalny said was politically motivated. Navalny, a lawyer who is one of President Vladimir Putin’s harshest critics and is also an officially registered candidate in Moscow’s September 8 mayoral election, was released from custody Friday on the promise that he remains in Moscow while his conviction is being appealed. You can do something now to facilitate the release of another political prisoner.

Photo: Kommersant Photo/Reuters

July 18, 2013: Drips and Drops of Hope

Congolese refugees, displaced and forced to flee over the national border by fighting between the Congo army and a Ugandan rebel group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), gather around dry water taps at Bukanga transit camp near the town of Bundibugyo, 238 miles southwest of Uganda’s capital Kampala. Hundreds of families spent a night without cover at the Bukanga refugee camp as humanitarian organizations struggled to set up communal tents, according to an eyewitness. The logistics of warzone rescue operations are all but insurmountable. The first step in joining that effort is to become aware of the facts of the struggle.

Photo: James Akena/Reuters

July 17, 2013: Femen’s Stamp of Approval

The new official Marianne post stamp is pictured during its unveiling at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France. The postage stamp depicting France’s cultural symbol Marianne has touched off a flurry of controversy after one of its creators revealed that Ukrainian activist and member of Femen Inna Shevchenko had inspired the portrait of Marianne. Recently granted political asylum in France, Shevchenko last year hacked down a Christian cross in Kiev with a chainsaw, while topless, as part of a demonstration of support for jailed members of the female punk band Pussy Riot, which is one way to take a stand and empower women around the world.

Photo: Francois Mori/Reuters

July 16, 2013: Playing Zeta?

A boy poses with a toy gun outside his home in Monterrey, Mexico. During the past five years, the notorious paramilitary Zetas drug cartel has created a stronghold in Monterrey, disrupting the civil security of a city of 4 million people that houses the headquarters for some of the most important financial and industrial groups in Mexico. On Monday, Mexican marines captured Miguel Treviño Morales, known as Z-40 and the presumed leader of the Zetas, near the border city of Nuevo Laredo. A U.S. official told a Texas TV station to expect a “pretty quick” “spike in violence.” So there is no time to delay: Take a stand against gun deaths.

Photo: Daniel Becerril/Reuters

July 15, 2013: Mourning Justice

Brooklyn Nimoh of New York wears a “Justice for Trayvon Martin” shirt as people gather at Union Square in response to killer George Zimmerman being found not guilty of second-degree murder in the February 26, 2012, shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. A Florida jury of six women acquitted Zimmerman on the grounds that he had acted in self-defense in the fatal shooting of Martin, an unarmed black teenager. The case sparked national debates over racial profiling and “stand your ground” gun laws, debates that the verdict will do nothing to change it but the quest for justice is far from over, add your name to bring a civil case against George Zimmerman.

Photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

July 12, 2013: Working Muddy Waters

A diver adjusts his mask on a small boat on Yangon River as he prepares to search for coal and iron from sunken ships. Every morning and evening during high tide, up to 40 boats of different sizes with crews of between four and eight people leave Myanmar’s former capital for the dangerous job of salvaging items from the river’s muddy waters. Wearing flimsy gas masks attached to rubber water pipe, the divers jump into the water to grab scrap to be sold later. Some divers have lost their lives when their ropes broke or fishing nets and hooks caught them. Each boat earns about $1,000 a month in this tiring and lethal job, representing a depth of global poverty that makes it worthwhile to stand up and say “No Más!”

Photo: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

July 11, 2013: Goodluck to Nigeria’s LGBT People

A Fulani herdsman poses for a photograph during a horse race in Bida, Niger State, Nigeria. The herdsman might be well advised to ditch the earrings and adopt a more butch hairstyle if Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives have their ways, lest he be mistaken for a gay man and tossed into jail. Both legislative bodies of Nigeria have passed a “Jail the Gays” bill that would impose prison sentences of up to 14 years for the so-called crime of loving a person of the same gender. The only hope for sanity and tolerance to retain a foothold in Nigeria is if President Goodluck Jonathan vetoes the measure. Do you think Goodluck should do the right thing for LGBT rights? Tell him so!

Photo: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters

July 10, 2013: Linked In

Prison guards cuff themselves as they protest in front of the Congress building in Brazil’s capital city Brasilia. According to the demonstrators, the prison guards are calling for President Dilma Rousseff to overturn the veto of a federal law that regulates registration, possession and sale of firearms and ammunition for the agents. The guards’ protest comes in the wake of massive street demonstrations in the past few weeks ahead of the country hosting the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup. The spontaneous rallies have put a global focus on Brazil’s income inequality and corruption, underscoring the fact that Brazilians, like you, have serious issues to say No Más to.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

July 9, 2013: Sound Therapy

Members of the Alma Llanera Hospital Care Program’s orchestra for sick children perform during their first anniversary concert in Caracas. The program is one of the most recent initiatives of Venezuela’s musical education program known as El Sistema. Founded in 1975 by Dr. José Antonio Abreu and 11 children in a Caracas parking garage, the El Sistema now teaches music to 300,000 of Venezuela’s poorest children. Its most-famous alumnus is conductor and violinist Gustavo Dudamel, and its most-inspiring aspect is teaching hospital-bound children to play musical instruments during their treatment. You may not be a Venezuelan doctor, but you canhelp expand music education to children.

Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

July 8, 2013: Asylum Granted

Ukrainian activist Inna Shevchenko, member of the women’s rights group Femen, poses at the organization’s “training camp” at the Lavoir Moderne Parisen in Paris. Shevchenko has received documents granting her political asylum in France, the press service of the women’s rights group reported on Monday. Founded in Ukraine in 2008, Femen is internationally notorious for organizing topless and seminude protests against issues ranging from sex tourism to international marriage agencies to lack of freely available public toilets. You don’t need to take off your shirt to stand with Femen, and stand with women around the world against rape, violence and fear.

Photo: Charles Platiau/Reuters

July 5, 2013: Dark Days for Egyptian Brotherhood

Army soldiers tell a female supporter of overthrown President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to take her protest to the sidewalk as they stand guard around Cairo University, on the outskirts of Cairo. Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, was toppled Wednesday in a military coup hardly a year after taking office, and Egyptian security forces arrested the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, on Thursday in a crackdown against the Islamist movement. Adli Mansour, head of Egypt’s constitution court, was sworn in as the interim head of state on Friday. At least 16 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in street clashes across Egypt since Morsi’s overthrow. Egyptians, like you, have serious issues to say No Más to.

Photo: Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

July 3, 2013: Egypt’s Morsi Men

Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi take part in a drill during a protest at the Raba El-Adwyia mosque square in Cairo. According to military sources, Egypt’s army plans to push Morsi aside and suspend the constitution after an all-but-impossible ultimatum it has given the Islamist president expires. Protests against Morsi by an estimated 17 million people across the country have been called the largest in human history. The demonstrations in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square reportedly included the sexual assault and rape of 91 women. As long as Egyptians are saying No Más to Morsi, how about taking a stand with women around the world against rape, violence and fear.

Photo: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

July 2, 2013: Married

Anne Austin, 28, (L) and Jen Durham, 30, exchange a kiss as they get married in West Hollywood, California. The U.S. Supreme Court last week let stand a lower court’s overturning of California’s gay-marriage-banning Proposition 8, unleashing a rush of matrimony-minded LGBT couples upon courthouses throughout the state. Support of same-sex marriage is at an all-time high among Americans, including the five out of nine Supreme Court justices who voted to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Still, the freedom to wed while same-sex is still a goal not a reality in most American states; so take the marriage equality pledge.

Photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

July 1, 2013: Gender Blender

Roberto, a man dressed as a traditional Zapotec also known as “Muxe,” walks inside a women’s bathroom during a traditional party in Mexico City. Anthropologists say the tradition of blurring genders among Mexico’s indigenous population is centuries old. The practice has been revived in recent decades due to the gay pride movement. The Muxes, mostly of ethnic Zapotec descent, are widely respected in southern Mexico. Recently, respect for genders outside the cis norm has extended north all the way to the United States of America where tolerant and inclusive residents are lining up to take the marriage equality pledge!

Photo: Edgard Garrido/Reuters

June 28, 2013: Buddha’s bin Laden

Wirathu, a Buddhist monk, poses for a photo in his room at a monastery in Mandalay. Wirathu has called himself the “Burmese bin Laden,” and was jailed in the past by Myanmar’s former military junta for anti-Muslim violence. He is the chief proponent of the 969 Buddhist extremist movement in the country formerly known as Burma. Wirathu and other 969 monks have been providing the moral justification for a wave of anti-Muslim bloodshed spreading across Myanmar. Anti-Muslim unrest simmered under the junta for nearly half a century, but the worst fighting has occurred since the quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011. Surely, a new bin Laden is among the things we can all say No Más to.

Photo: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

June 27, 2013: Lessons From Space

Astronauts (L-R) Zhang Xiaoguang, Nie Haisheng and Wang Yaping salute outside the re-entry capsule of China’s Shenzhou-10 spacecraft at its landing site in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The three astronauts touched down after a 15-day mission in which they docked with a prototype space laboratory. Wang Yaping is the country’s second female astronaut. Along with her scheduled science and technology experiments, Yaping gave a special school lesson from space that was delivered live to more than 60 million schoolchildren in 80,000 schools. One lesson learned? That Americans should demand world-class educational standards for all U.S. students.

Photo: Reuters

June 26, 2013: Trayvon’s Legacy

Crime-scene technician Diana Smith shows the jury a bag of Skittles, which was collected as evidence, during George Zimmerman’s trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for the February 26, 2012, shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The case has raised issues of racial mistrust and focused criticism on “stand your ground,” laws in certain states that permit the use of lethal force by residents who believe themselves to be unlawfully threatened. Surely, these issues are but two of the things you have to say No Más to.

Photo: Gary W. Green/Reuters

June 25, 2013: Where’s Edward?

An empty passenger seat believed to be reserved by former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden is seen on a plane to Cuba in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The White House pressured Russia to expel Snowden to face espionage charges for leaking details of massive National Security Agency surveillance programs to the Washington Post and the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper. Snowden was believed to have fled Hong Kong to Russia, where he was to board a plane for Cuba en route to seeking asylum in Ecuador. He never showed up for that flight. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims to know Snowden’s whereabouts, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has denied that Snowden ever crossed the border into Russia. Wherever you place Snowden on the whistleblower/traitor sliding scale, can we agree that the Internet should be kept free and your privacy secure?

Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

June 24, 2013: World Cup of Weed

Participants chat near a marijuana display during Uruguay’s second “Cannabis Cup” at a disco near downtown Montevideo. Marijuana samples from 114 growers were graded by judges to determine the country’s best domestically produced marijuana. Last year, Uruguayan president José Mujica proposed a government-run marijuana market that would put criminal elements in the cannabis trade out of business. The Organization of American States, representing 35 member nations, released a study this May calling for a serious discussion on legalizing marijuana. If you are among the majority of Americans that favor the U.S. prohibition on weed, tell Congress to reflect your views.

Photo: Andres Stapff/Reuters

June 10, 2013: Hell, No! Erdogan Won’t Go!

Supporters of Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan greet him near the city center in Ankara. Still the country’s most popular politician, Erdogan has pressed ahead with government business as usual despite civil unrest across the country. Erdogan told flag-waving supporters on Sunday that his patience with mass anti-government protests had its limits, and moved to seize back the initiative by announcing counter-rallies next weekend. As Erdogan spoke in Ankara, tens of thousands massed in an Istanbul square to demand his resignation. As long as the prime minister remains in office, thousands of Turks, like you, have something to say No Más about.

Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters

June 7, 2013: Kenya’s Cricket Pitch

Sonyanga Olengais (L), captain of the Maasai Cricket Warriors, talks to his teammate Mamai Simon Papai during their T20 cricket match against the Ambassadors of Cricket from India in Laikipia National Park, Kenya. Role models in their communities, the Maasai Cricket Warriors actively campaign against retrogressive and harmful cultural practices, such as female genital mutilation and early childhood marriages, while fighting to eradicate discrimination against women in Maasailand. Through cricket, they hope to promote healthier lifestyles and to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS among youth. Join the Warriors and stand with women around the world against rape, violence and fear.

Photo: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

June 6, 2013: Call for Change

A woman reacts as she talks on her mobile phone outside the site of a fire at the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Plant in Dehui, in northeastern China. Workers at the poultry slaughterhouse in which 119 people died in a fire this week saw nothing odd in several of the plant’s doors being locked, even after a previous fire at the four-year-old facility. Locked factory doors are recurring factors in Chinese workplace disasters. As long as employers continue to seal off exits, including emergency exits, to keep workers at their stations and to prevent theft, Chinese laborers, like you, have much to say No Más about.

Photo: Stringer/Reuters

June 5, 2013: Do Ask; Do Tell

Four U.S. Army Generals stand ready to testify about sexual assaults in the military at a Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. In early May, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, the man in charge of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, was arrested and charged with sexual battery for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in a suburban Virginia parking lot. Reported incidents of soldier-on-soldier sexual assault in the U.S. armed forces rose six percent in 2012. These four generals might stand for something else, but you can stand with women around the world against rape, violence and fear.

Photo: Larry Downing/Reuters

June 4, 2013: A Rage in Turkey

A demonstrator waves Turkey’s national flag as he sits on a monument during a protest against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK party. Erdogan accused anti-government protesters on Monday of walking “arm-in-arm with terrorism,” a remark that could further inflame public anger after three days of the most violent riots in decades. Hundreds of police and protesters have been injured in the riots, which began with a demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square and grew into mass protests against what opponents call Erdogan’s authoritarianism. Do you, like the Turkish protesters, have something to say No Más to?

Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters

June 3, 2013: Muddying an Issue

Participants play in the mud during Mud Day celebrations, at the American Club in Hanoi, Vietnam. The first-ever Mud Day in Vietnam took place to promote the upcoming World Environment Day on June 5. Participants wrestled in mud, took mud baths, drew mud paintings, danced on a mud dance floor and attempted to catch a pig and a duck in the mud. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment established World Environment Day in 1972 to raise global awareness of the need to take positive environmental action. You would know that, and so much more, if you were to consult these 10 books and heighten your environmental expertise.

Photo: Kham/Reuters

May 31, 2013: Shear Giving

A group of female farm workers take part in a charity sheep-shearing marathon at Newton Stewart Market in Newton Stewart, Scotland. The 10 women are shearing more than 500 sheep to raise money for the town’s Royal Highland Education Trust and local hospital. Charity challenges typically involve sponsored bicycle rides, walks or runs in which a participant solicits promises of a certain amount of funds from friends and acquaintances for every mile traveled. If you’d rather exercise your philanthropic muscle while sitting on the couch, go ahead and stay on your ass right now and commit to the giving pledge.

Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

May 30, 2013: A Child’s Season of Protest

A Munduruku Indian child stands near police as Amazon Indians from different tribes occupy the main construction site of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in Vitoria do Xingu, near Altamira in Para State, Brazil. Indians from various tribes returned to force the suspension of work on the Belo Monte plant for the second time in a month. The dam is projected to become the world's third largest in energy production. Indigenous peoples and activist groups oppose it for its impact on the environment and livelihoods of native tribes. Wherever you are, you can help protect the Amazon from Brazil’s mega-dam.

Photo: Lunae Parracho/Reuters

May 29, 2013: Tears for Trees

A Turkish riot policeman uses tear gas as people protest against the destruction of trees in a park in central Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Taksim Square was the site of a 1977 May Day massacre in which 42 labor-rights demonstrators were killed. Most casualties resulted from people being crushed in the panic that ensued when police drove armored vehicles into the crowd. Riot policemen in Turkey today bear a striking resemblance to security forces at America’s U.C. Davis, which shows progress. Still, Turkish tree huggers, like you, have plenty to say No Más to.

Photo: Osman Orsal/Reuters

May 28, 2013: Art and the City

German artist Suisse Marocain poses at the 59 Rivoli aftersquat in Paris. One of Paris’s most visited centers of contemporary art, the 59 Rivoli aftersquat houses 30 workshops on six floors. Originally a branch of Credit Lyonnais bank, the building lay abandoned for 15 years before being squatted in 1999 by a collective of artists. A deal with the current Parisian mayor arranged for the city to buy the building and rent it back to 10 visiting and 20 permanent artists. Officials now want to change that deal. Residents are keen to put up a fight against altering a system they believe is a global example of compromise between squatters and city officials. The squatters, like you, have something specific to say No Más to.

Photo: Jacky Naegelen/Reuters

May 27, 2013: The Peacemaker’s Face

An imprisoned member of street gang Mara 18 poses for a photograph at the Izalco prison, about 40 miles from San Salvador. Inmates handed over handmade knives and more than 60 cell phones and other not-permitted articles in an effort to keep the truce between the country’s two most-powerful gangs—Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). A truce treaty signed by both sides in March 2012 has been credited with a 52 percent reduction in murders in the country. However, the U.S. State Department contends that the gang truce has done little to reduce robberies and assaults; so the Salvadoran people still, like you, have a lot to say No Más to.

Photo: Ulises Rodriguez/Reuters

May 26, 2013: Two-Wheeled Wins

The logo of Bank of Moscow is seen on bicycles for rent in central Moscow. City authorities in association with the Bank of Moscow are expected to launching a bike rental project that will allow people to take 1,000 bicycles for rent at 100 rental centers throughout the city. Bike rental schemes have cropped up in major cities around the world: Paris, New York, Taipei, Frankfurt and even Montreal, Canada. Converting commuters to bicycle travel is seen as good for traffic congestion, good for the rider’s cardiovascular well-being, and as one of the things you can do now to prevent climate change.

Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

May 25 2013: China’s Gun Culture

Gun Yuangu, 45, uses a twig and engine oil to lubricate a gun at his house in the village of Basha in Guizhou province, China. The village, an old ethnic Miao settlement with a population of 2,200, is believed to be the last community authorized by the Chinese government to keep guns. Although people in Basha no longer subsist on hunting, guns and gunpowder pots are part of their traditional dress, and firing toward the sky is a ritual to welcome guests, which is in sharp contrast to certain American rituals that have triggered a national pledge to stand against gun violence.

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